Cuddy lay back against the starched pillows of the hospital bed and wiped her eyes. She took a deep breath and looked back at House, who was just staring at her. "Stop doing that," she said quietly.
"Doing what?" He asked, equally quietly, while running a thumb across his cheek.
"Staring at me like that," she answered.
"I'm not staring at you," he said.
"You are," she said shakily. She dropped his hand and curled over into the fetal position, but still facing him. She glanced up at him once more before closing her eyes.
"Are you gonna try and sleep?" He bent down to whisper.
"No." She replied shortly. She didn't elaborate, and House didn't dare push her to say anymore. She looked so . . . injured. He felt bad about making her even be conscious.
"The detectives will be here soon. You're . . . going to need to tell them what happened." House told her, stroking her thumb. "It shouldn't take too long."
She didn't open her eyes, but raised her eyebrows, as if she didn't believe him. He leaned back in the chair and scrubbed his hands over his eyes. He didn't want this to happening, he didn't want this to be them. He hated seeing his beautiful, strong-willed, kick-ass girlfriend all beaten up and broken.
All he wanted to do was lie next to her and hold her . . . but he had a feeling that that wouldn't be appreciated. In fact, he'd probably scare the life out of her.
Someone had made her like this. Someone had done this to her . . . someone had taken her away from him. This wasn't her, this wasn't what she should be like. He let out a forceful breath and sank further back in the chair. Cuddy opened her eyes. "What's wrong?" She asked.
House looked at her, and suppressed a laugh. He guessed the laugh-suppressing expression looked more like a pained grimace because Cuddy immediately looked concerned. She tried to push herself up on the bed, but failed, so she settled for being slouched on her back. "House," she said quietly, making no eye-contact, "I'm sorry."
That made House sit up. "What?" He said, staring intently at her. "What the hell are you sorry about?"
"Just . . . " She scrunched her fingers up. "For leaving you like that. I know it wasn't my fault and I know it's stupid to feel this way . . . but I left you with Rachel and no doubt you had to field questions from my mother and the hospital . . . I just feel sorry for doing that to you."
"You didn't do anything wrong!" House insisted. "He took you. You couldn't have stopped it. You're going to feel bad enough about this already, don't make it worse by placing unnecessary blame. You did nothing wrong," He stressed. "Whatever you did to survive was the right thing."
"Yeah." She said shortly. "How is Rachel?" She asked apprehensively.
"Okay," House let his gaze soften. "She missed you. A lot. But you are her mother and she was stuck with me and Evelyn for eight weeks so it's not any surprise that she wants you back really badly," he elaborated.
"You . . . invited my mother to stay with you?" Cuddy asked, shocked.
"Yeah. For Rachel. I just thought that she might need someone who . . . wasn't me." House explained, and Cuddy nodded.
"I want to see her." She said adamantly.
"Your mother?" House asked.
"My daughter," Cuddy stressed. Her eyes filled with tears. "House, please, call them. Get Rachel here, I have to see her." A few tears slid down her cheeks. "Oh my God," Cuddy moaned, wiping her eyes, "what am I going to do?"
"What do you mean?" House asked gruffly, voice thick with emotion.
"How do I come back from this?" Cuddy whispered.
House paused. "I don't know. No one really knows. But if anyone can do it, you can. You're Lisa Cuddy, right?" He quirked his lip up at her in the ghost of a smile.
She burst into tears. "Why did this have to happen to me?" She wailed. "Why couldn't it have been someone else? Because now everything's going to fall apart . . . you'e going to end up leaving me, my mother's going to put me down, tell me I should have been stronger, stopped this, Rachel's going to hate me now because I'm going to be too . . . damaged to be a good mother, and then when we get over that one day she'll find out this happened and she'll be terrified . . . " Cuddy broke off and let her shoulders heave. "Ow," she murmured, and the crying exacerbated her broken ribs.
"Cuddy," House placed a gentle hand either side of her face and looked straight into her eyes. He knew that this violated his not-too-much-touching rule, but she needed to understand what he was about to say, and he needed to know that she heard it.
"First," House said, "Rachel will not hate you. She loves you, you're her mother. And she will be so happy that you came back that she won't care what kind of a mother you are to her - even though you'll always be a great one - and when she does find out . . . you'll explain. And she'll love you even more for getting through it. Second, if your mother tries to make one remark about how you handle this, I'll kick her out of our house, or I'll call her up and make her see sense. Whatever the hell she says, just don't give a damn. You are still the strongest person I know, easily, and nothing your mother can say will change that. And third," he paused, so she definitely heard this one, "I will never leave you. Got it?"
Cuddy nodded. "Got it," she whispered. House noticed her hands were shaking. He took another look at her face and he felt the burn behind his eyes. Just imagining how she got those bruises and what someone had done to her . . . he felt the familiar anger well up inside him. He took his hands off her swollen cheeks and placed them out of sight, where he clenched them into fists.
Cuddy saw his jaw set into a hard line and knew that he was angry. Although his inability to open up was frustrating, knowing what he was feeling wasn't hard. He showed it, with all his expressions and body language: it was figuring out why he felt something that was impossible.
However, this time, Cuddy was pretty sure she knew why he was so livid. She was incensed too. But she was also something House was not: scared. Although she hated that man with every fibre of her being, she was still terrified of him.
House was leaning on the wall beside her bed, with his eyes closed. She knew that House disliked - or rather, hated - showing and talking about his feelings, but she knew that he'd would be feeling bad right now too. Because for all his feminist spouting, he was extremely protective of her. Whenever she was in a situation with a remotely attractive male, House would make it his mission to destroy whatever she was doing. And Cuddy knew it was just because he hated her being around other men.
She knew that he would be feeling like he screwed up royally.
"This wasn't your fault either," she told him, and he opened one eye. "Don't you go placing unnecessary blame that'll just make this harder."
"It's different - " House began, but Cuddy cut him off.
"No, it isn't," she stressed. "You were right. It's his fault. No one else's."
"You're small," House alternated, "and he was a man. You didn't stand a chance. Me . . . I could have been there. Don't pretend like those circumstances are the same."
Cuddy felt anger inside herself too. But, this time, not just with the guy, but with House. "Don't you dare do this," she warned, with such vehemence that he took a small step back, "you don't get do your "something happened which I feel bad about so I'm going to be an unbearable ass to everyone" routine. This isn't about you. Or about anything that happened to you. I know that this affected you and I will deal with that, but . . . this, right now, is about me."
House was silent. At first, Cuddy thought that this was because he didn't know how to respond, but after a few moments she realised. He was . . . sad. No, not just sad, but devastated. Of course he was terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing right now. Even after a relatively happy and satisfying four years together House still refused to believe that him, just as he was, was enough for her. He was always making jokes about how she should find someone else, because in the end he would drive her crazy out of her mind - jokes which Cuddy knew were not completely jokey.
He had this irrational belief that he couldn't act appropriately around anyone. And sure, he was a jerk, but he was choosing to be a jerk. To anyone else this might sound strange and a little disturbing, but Cuddy wouldn't have it any other way, because this way, she knew that House was capable of compassion. She'd seen it before, to her and to others. But despite that fact that when he wanted to be he could be incredibly sweet and caring, he still believed that he would always say the wrong thing when it mattered.
House was insensitive, but he extremely good at picking up on the most apt thing to say. So far, he'd been doing fine with this. She'd been nervous about how House and Rachel were going to react to her, and she was still nervous about Rachel, but House was doing great. Just as much as she could do this, he could do this too.
But with her last few sentences of vitriol, she'd scared him. And now he was petrified that he'd upset her. She pushed down the immediate annoyance at having to soothe him when all she needed right now was to be soothed herself, but after successfully quashing those feelings, she turned to him. "Sorry - "
"Don't." He said shortly. "You don't need to look after me. I need to look after you. This is about you, and I wasn't trying to take that away from you but the words got away from me and you know that I can't ever say the right thing - "
"Shut up," she told him, but fondly. It was banter, it was just like them.
Except . . . it wasn't. He was looking at her again like he was scared he'd hurt her. She sighed, then winced as she aggravated her ribs. "Stop it. Stop acting like everything you do is going to upset me. House . . . I'm still me."
He smiled. "I know that. I just don't wanna upset you."
Cuddy could have pointed out that the likelihood was that he would upset her in some way . . . but she didn't. Instead, she settled with the simpler: "I need you right now. Don't worry about saying or doing the wrong thing, because I don't care. House, I love you. Just be here, that's all I'm asking." She felt her throat constrict and her eyes well up as she watched him digest her words.
"Okay," he muttered. "Okay. I mean, of course, you know that - " But before Cuddy could interject he realised what he was doing. "Okay," he murmured, squeezing her hand. There was a brief moment of understanding between them before they were interrupted by a knock on the door.
"Excuse me," Ducharme poked his head in. "I'm Detective Ducharme and I need to ask you some questions."
"Oh," Cuddy faltered at the thought of having to recount everything. In fact, she wanted to throw up. "That's . . . fine."
"Okay then. I have another Detective, Detective Robbins, here with me. I thought it might be easier for you to have a female presence." Ducharme and Robbins both stepped into the room, looking ominous in their dark clothes.
"Yeah." Cuddy exhaled. "Let's just get this over with."
They moved closer to her bedside, Ducharme giving House the smallest of nods. Cuddy turned to House. "You don't have to stay."
"You said you wanted me here." He said carefully.
"I meant generally. But . . . you don't have to hear this." She ran a hand down his arm, letting him know that she wasn't testing him and was being serious.
Judging from the apprehensive look on his face, she assumed he wanted to run for the hills - not that she'd blame him. "No. I'll stay," House decided, pulling his chair closer to her bed and sitting beside her. She took his hand.
"Alright," Ducharme started, "I'll start by telling you that we know who he is and he's in custody."
"Who is he?" House said forcefully, as Cuddy simultaneously said, "I know."
"James McHenry," Ducharme told them. "He worked for the force on this case from the beginning, and used to moderate the files. That's how the links were lost and he slipped under the radar. He was fired two months ago, the day you were abducted. He wasn't able to switch the information, and one thing led to another . . . " Ducharme trailed off. "We won't be able to convict him without your statement, though."
"So," House drawled, before the Detectives could ask another question, "she spent eight weeks abducted because of police stupidity?"
"House." Cuddy warned.
He squeezed his eyes shut. He was this close to punching that stupid Detective in the face. Doing all they could his ass. He couldn't believe that even the police were so incompetent.
Cuddy motioned for the Detective to continue, and silently begged that the comment would be ignored. "Okay," Ducharme said nervously, "we're going to need you tell us what happened. I'm sorry to make you do this, but you're going to need to start from the beginning."
Cuddy's heart began to beat faster and she knew that she was going to start to hyperventilate. House squeezed her hand again . . . it seemed to be the only method of contact that reliably worked to soothe her, even just a little bit.
"Well . . . I don't remember what happened until we got to the basement. I think I was unconscious. And, uh, he took me downstairs, by my hair, and put me on the floor, and uh, tied me up." Cuddy stuttered. She didn't want to do this.
House stiffened in his chair. His own heart started to race. He desperately wanted to be there for her, but he didn't know if he could hear this. He didn't think he could handle hearing what she went through in excruciating detail.
"He left me there for a few hours," she continued. "He came back later, though. He said, uh, that we would take things slow." She lifted her other hand and wiped away a stray tear. "But it only took about three visits until he . . . took my clothes off and . . . raped me." She blinked fast, trying to stop the onslaught of tears.
House took a few deep breaths, but . . . couldn't do it. "I'm sorry," he said. He brought her bruised hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to it. "I just . . ."
"I know," she replied. "You don't have to stay."
His eyes burned and stung. He wanted so much to be there for her. It pained him to have to leave . . . but he knew himself. And he couldn't handle hearing this. "I'm sorry," he repeated lamely.
"It's okay," she nodded, and he could tell she meant. "Can you call my mom and tell her to bring Rachel?" Cuddy choked out.
"Sure," he said immediately. He nodded to the Detectives. "I'll be outside."
He upped and left at lightning speed. He barrelled down the hallway, limp-hopping until he was far enough away that she didn't hear him start striking the wall. He knew it was cliched, but he had to get some of this anger out. He couldn't go back into that room and look at her without getting some of the overwhelming rage out.
He knew that he wasn't out of the way enough for people not to notice, so after he'd punched the wall three times he drew he stinging hand back and curled it into his chest, nursing his grazed and lightly bloodied knuckles.
He sank down onto a plastic orange chair and took a few deep breath. He had to calm down. All that Cuddy had asked was that he call Evelyn and tell her bring Rachel. If he couldn't do that . . . what kind of man did that make him?
So he pulled his phone out and pressed the number for the home phone. Evelyn sleepily answered after a few rings. He'd forgotten that it was Saturday and that it was only seven thirty. He didn't know why he'd assumed they'd be awake. Then again, these last few hours had felt like forever.
"Greg?" She asked. "Where are you? I thought you were in bed."
"I'm at the hospital," he replied shortly.
"Something happen to a patient?" She asked.
"No . . . I'm at Princeton General. Ev," he took a deep breath, "they found her. She's here."
Evelyn gasped. There was a flurry of movements and then Evelyn saying breathily, "is she okay?"
House didn't know how to answer that. "Yes. Sort of. Not really . . . Ev, she wants to see Rachel. Can you bring her?"
"Oh. Of course . . . tell her I love her, and that we're coming . . ."
He could hear her bustling about and running into Rachel's room. "I'll see you soon. She's with the Detectives right now."
"Okay." Evelyn breathed. "I'll see you." Then she hung up.
House sat by the entrance, waiting for Rachel and Evelyn. He barely shut his eyes for a second when he heard someone shouting his name. "House!" His eyes snapped open as Rachel threw her lithe body at him. She was dressed still in her pajamas. House assumed that Evelyn had been trying to get there as fast as possible.
"Hey kid," he said, hoisting her up and sitting her on his good thigh. He wasn't usually so touchy feely, but he needed to talk to her.
"Mommy's here!" Rachel squealed. "She came back! I want to see her!"
"In a minute, kid. Listen," he looked her in the eyes, "Mommy looks a little bit . . . different."
Rachel narrowed her eyes. "Like what?" She asked.
"Like . . . when you hurt yourself. Mommy's . . . hurt," House explained, glancing up at Evelyn's tears.
"Oh." Rachel said in a small voice. "Is she . . . going to be okay?" She almost whispered.
"Yeah, she'll be fine," House replied. "But you need to be gentle. Alright?"
"Alright," Rachel nodded vigorously. "I'll be gentle. I want to see my mom," she pleaded.
"Okay," House said, getting up and take her hand. "I'll take you to her room."
The three of them walked down the hallway, Evelyn trying to make contact with House but him deliberately ignoring her gaze. He couldn't deal with Evelyn right now. No, he needed to get Rachel to Cuddy.
It turned out that they had perfect timing, because the Detectives were just leaving as House turned onto the corridor. "Hey Rachel," Ducharme said, bending down on his knee to talk to her, "your mom really wants to see you."
"I want to see my mommy too!" Rachel squealed.
"Good," he smiled. "We'll need to talk to her again at the station soon," Ducharme whispered to Evelyn and House. "But we have everything we need for now."
House nodded. "See you soon," he answered. "Evelyn," he turned to his mother-in-law. "I think Cuddy would just like to see Rachel right now. She's . . . sensitive. And we need to reciprocate. I'm sure she'll be fine to see you soon, but I think she wants a moment just with her daughter."
He saw the flash of hurt across Evelyn's eyes, but even she wasn't evil enough to go against Cuddy's wishes - they all wanted to be exactly what Cuddy needed right now. "Of course," Evelyn nodded, wiping away a tear. "Tell her I love her very much," Evelyn said shakily.
"I will," House promised, guiding Rachel into the room.
Rachel looked over at Cuddy, who was currently reshuffling her pillows. She froze when she saw Rachel. She exhaled slowly. "Hey baby," she whispered.
Rachel stood motionless for a moment and then burst into tears.
House winced. This was the problem with children . . . they were too honest. He saw Cuddy's face crumple and he knew that she needed Rachel right now. "Rach," he prompted. "I told you she looked different, but . . . it's your mom." He pushed her gently towards the bed. "And I think she needs a hug right now."
Rachel shuffled over to the bed, eyes streaming. "Mommy," she cried, and even after her initial apprehension reached her arms out with a grabby motion like she used to when she was a baby.
House knew that Cuddy couldn't handle lifting a child at that point, so he scooted over and lifted Rachel onto the bed. "Remember," he reminded, "be gentle."
Rachel curled herself like a monkey in Cuddy's arms. "I missed you so much!" Rachel wailed.
Cuddy was sobbing too, but House knew that it wasn't all sad. There was a mixture of relief tears in there as well. "I missed you too baby," Cuddy kissed the top of Rachel's head. "I'm sorry I went away, but I'm back, I promise."
She wrapped her arms tighter around her daughter. "I'm sorry baby," she said again, peppering the little girl's forehead with kisses. "I love you," she said. "More than anything."
"I love you too mama," Rachel sniffed, stopping her tears. It had finally sunk in that she was in her mother's arms again. "I'm sorry that you're hurted," she sniffled. "But it'll be okay," Rachel looked up to her mother's poor, bruised face. "Me and House will make it all better. Won't we?" She looked over expectantly at House.
He met Cuddy's watery gaze. "Of course we will kid. Mommy's going to be just fine."
And although it was interspersed with her tears, he thought he saw the hint of a smile grace her lips.
